In August 2017, Atlantic celebrated the Grand Opening of the Packaging Solution Center in Charlotte. This event marked an incredible feat of dedication to the outcome along with pure hard work. We measured success both in the scope of the testing and equipment we were introducing to the marketplace, and also in the actual building and completion of the facility.

The building process involved intensive planning, demolition, building, and installation of interior structure, finishes, and the testing and packaging equipment, all completed in a fast-track and condensed 4 month schedule.

Our building partner on the Packaging Solution Center, Choate Interior Construction Company, submitted the project to the American Builders and Contractors for the Carolinas and it was granted the Eagle Award for the Top Interior Project $5-$10M by that association.

To reach our goal of offering the most advanced packaging testing facility outside the academic field – and having a sophisticated building to match – we opted to have the existing lobby and exterior walls completely demolished and to start fresh with flat, level floors, a whole new structure, and a beautiful and welcoming front entrance.

We also had significant technical requirements for housing the TruMotion Transportation Simulator, a vibration rig installed several feet beneath the main floor and rising several feet above to test and refine load containment integrity.

Choate came through on all fronts, from reconstruction planning and scheduling, to handling a two month delay on an already tight timeline, to managing quality control and safety, and, ultimately, coming through to closeout the project with great success.

Since its opening, the Packaging Solution Center has served an important service for our customers and partners in the packaging industry. With our ability to simulate real-world transportation conditions in a lab environment with the TruMotion equipment, we help our customers optimize their load integrity to eliminate break, damage, and loss in transit.

Our full approach to stretch wrapping is our patented MUST Method and includes four critical components: audit, test, optimize, and monitor load integrity over the long term. With all of these pieces in place, our customers are confident that their loads are Fit2Ship, each and every time.

This group is made up of food industry professionals on the manufacturer and retailer side, as well as the packaging and platform side, with a focus on distribution. All parties are members of the GMA (Grocery Manufacturer’s Association) and are committed to improvement and progress in packaging and distribution.

The Supply Chain Committee is tasked with some tough but important goals:

Identifying the challenges faced at every step along the distribution chain

Discussing and brainstorming ideas that could help

Proposing solutions that would ease these challenges on all sides

This particular meeting was coordinated by Atlantic Packaging & CHEP, the global leader in pooling and supply chain management solutions.

The primary focus of the meeting was how to optimize unit loads, which then created discussions around variations and inconsistencies in pallet stacking, what’s causing them, how it impacts distribution centers (especially high velocity operations), and what manufacturers and retailers can do about it.

Barriers to Optimizing Unit Load

It seems straightforward. Stack it, wrap it, ship it. But there are a ton of factors contributing to optimizing a unit load. And because perfection is so elusive, we find ourselves facing a multitude of barriers when trying to palletize our products and move them through the supply chain in an effective, efficient manner.

What are these barriers? A few of these include the variety of products being packed, changes in primary product design and packaging, and changes in secondary packaging to meet sustainability goals. Any of these factors can cause overhang or underhang on the pallets and affect the integrity of the load as it moves through the supply chain as well as efficiency and productivity in distribution centers.

Another challenge is that manufacturers on the shipping side and retailers on the receiving side often have different needs and objectives when it comes to how a unit load is built. And then these needs can vary with every vendor and every end user customer. A lack of clear standards industry-wide is one of the biggest barriers we face. And defining these standards is one of the objectives of the GMA Supply Chain Committee.

Standards also come into play when stretch wrapping these pallets for shipment. This stage of packaging is often the last line of defense for protecting the products, preventing damage, and promoting safety. But the lack of understanding of the science of stretch wrapping and all the factors that contribute to wrapping a successful load leads to inconsistency with almost every pallet shipped. And that leads to increased damage, unsaleables, out-of-stock items, and safety risks.

Defining standards in stretch wrapping for the food and beverage industry is also something that the GMA Supply Chain Committee is tackling.

What Did We Learn?

The Solution Center proved to be a worthy environment for this meeting, as members had the chance to learn firsthand the intricacies of stretch wrapping for pallets. With Atlantic’s Stretch University session and demonstrations of our TruMotion testing equipment, we learned that it matters how much film is pre-stretched, how the tension it set, and how the products are stacked, wrapped, and secured to the pallet. We also learned that, even with the optimal stretch wrapping applied, it also matters how we monitor the machines to maintain that optimal application over time.

Damaged product is a big problem for retailers. When they have to reject a pallet of products due to product damage, it affects the efficiency of their distribution centers and their in-stock, on-shelf supply.

It’s also a problem for manufacturers who are faced with costly returns, re-works and pallets of unsaleable goods.

Other critical factors that affect both manufacturers and retailers are stack patterns on a pallet, labeling applications, and over-packaging. With outdated and non-enforceable Industry Standard Guidelines, inconsistencies abound in all these areas, causing inefficiencies in both manual and automated distribution centers.

When we can solve the problem of damage and inconsistencies, unsaleables go way down and sales go way up.

Communication is Key

Through in-depth discussions and input from all sides at the GMA Supply Chain Committee Meeting, it was clear that productive communication is the key that could help to address the cause of most inefficiencies. This applies to all parties involved in product development and distribution – from sales and marketing, to R&D, package design, packaging, logistics, receiving, and distribution.

With a clearer understanding of how each decision affects every step of the supply chain, we can develop better industry-wide standardized processes and best practices that work for everyone up and down the chain.

Developing these guidelines is a goal of the GMA Supply Chain Committee and they are making steady progress in the right direction.

What to Do Next

Part of the objective of this committee meeting in March was to prepare for a break out session at the TPA Supply Chain Conference in Orlando on Tuesday, April 17th from 1-2:45pm.

The session is titled: Best Practices for Building, Handling & Transporting Unit Loads. We strongly encourage everyone to attend this meeting to gain context and to provide input on unit load optimization, particularly for highly automated operations.

In the last several months, we’ve directed a lot of attention to Atlantic’s headline investment of 2017 — the Packaging Solution Center. There’s a lot to be excited about with new opportunities for package testing and process automation, in a space that’s the first of its kind.

In light of all that’s new, we’re maintaining perspective into all avenues of our business by talking with our customers to learn what they value the most in their vendor relationships and what kind of opportunities they envision with the Solution Center as an added resource.

Pete Artemenko from Atlantic’s marketing team recently sat down with Mark Gossage, a customer with Stanley Black & Decker, who has worked closely with Atlantic sales rep. TJ Little for the last three years.

We spoke with our customer, Mark Gossage, about challenges he faces and the services that bring the most value to his operations.

Mark told Pete that he finds value not only in opportunities the Packaging Solution Center can provide, like reducing risk and material cost, but also in other investments Atlantic makes to ensure process efficiency, technical support, and customer service.

These investments may not be as headline-worthy as the Packaging Solution Center, but for Mark, they’ve been just as valuable.

They’re part of Atlantic’s continuous commitment to investment, not only in research and development, but in the entire customer experience.

Interview with Mark Gossage

Pete Artemenko with Atlantic Packaging (PA): You’ve been at Stanley Black & Decker for about five years. You’ve been partnering with Atlantic and with TJ Little on some of your projects. Tell me a little bit about these projects.

Mark Gossage (MG): Back in 2013, when I was in the Stanley Leadership Program at Greenfield, we used to wrap with strapping and corner boards and our cost was about five dollars a pallet. By optimizing production through the use of Wulftec gears and partnering up with Atlantic, we dropped the cost down to about sixty-eight cents. So, with the amount of volume we did in the plant at that time, it was about $150,000 worth of savings for Stanley Black & Decker.

We did a similar project at our plant in Maryland and were able to cut our stretch film usage in half. We now only have purchase film once per year!

Stretch Wrapping at Stanley Black and Decker

PA:How did you achieve 50% less usage?

MG: We used the Atlantic yellow high-performance film, and then we optimized the wrappers. This allowed us to use less ounces of film per pallet. We also did the same thing in our plant right outside of Montreal. The first wrapper we added was so successful, we actually added a second in that facility. We’ve also got conveyors with Atlantic.

Recently, we did a Kaizen event at our plant in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

PA: When you say Kaizen, what does that mean?

MG: It’s a lean, focused event. It comes from the Japanese word for continuous improvement— looking at a process, and how to improve it.

We teamed up with Atlantic because we knew there were many costs on the packaging material side, and there was also automation where we could pick different components to improve packaging and transport.

We broke into two different groups, one focused on getting savings from materials, and one on the equipment side that was focused on how to acquire and improve automation. Because Atlantic can actually do both, I think that was the first time a company partnered with us on both sides.

Partnering on Materials AND Equipment

PA: Stanley Black & Decker represents a huge amount of volume, where one small change in optimizing efficiency represents huge cost savings. How does that get you excited about new partnerships and opportunities to create new cost savings?

MG: We have multiple plants around the United States.. We’re constantly growing — just like Atlantic.

Partnering with someone like Atlantic, it’s a little different than companies we’ve worked with in the past. Usually we partner with a materials company and a separate automation company. If something goes wrong with a label or a bag, they always point fingers at the other company. With Atlantic, you can do labels and equipment. So if something doesn’t print, or it doesn’t fit, or something else is wrong, there’s no one to point fingers at. It’s a one-stop shop. That aligns with a lot of our plants, where we’re becoming a more vertically integrated one-stop shop that focuses around efficiency.

Delivering Automation and Integration

PA: The best place for us to be at Atlantic is to be in a seat where we are accountable to the customers for their most critical applications. We want to be there because that’s where the most opportunity is, but also, we want to be in the fight with the customer. We want to be in this together.

MG: And it adds more value. Because instead of the customer feeling like we’re all alone, we’re actually in it with someone else next to us helping us solve the issues. It’s something that Atlantic can offer that some other companies can’t. The major difference is in being able to provide the equipment and the material. Other companies can’t do that.

PA: What are the pieces that come together for you on the Atlantic side that are valuable to you as a customer of Atlantic? Is there a specific project you have in mind?

There were two instances. With our Automatic Autobagger, we had Don Stewart, Mike Christie, Chip Bennett, and Nick Ott from Atlantic working on this. We had a hard deadline to have it up and running and these guys literally flew out there to fix the machine. All the Atlantic experts were there to make sure it was working.

Don Stewart, Atlantic’s Labeling Expert

We came in with the Factory Acceptance Test and there were issues that we found that had to be fixed. In a short timeframe, Atlantic disassembled, shipped, and reassembled the machine to have it fully operational..

The other instance was a Kaizen event. We had Eric Farmer and TJ Little from sales doing the material side. We had Chip Bennett, and we had Nick Ott on the equipment side. And we had transportation, where Atlantic actually created a warehouse next to our facility to do vendor-managed inventory only two miles away from our plant.

So instead of having to store all the extra labels and take storage spaces out of our plant, or having to wait for shipping all the way from Charlotte or Wilmington, the labels could be stored right down the street. It was vendor-managed inventory, so we would pay for it right when it hit our dock. It was very efficient and very beneficial for us.

Offering a robust inventory management program

PA: It’s really interesting talking to you about it to hear the customer side. One of the things we hear from leadership of the company is that we listen to the customer, we learn from the customer, and we invest in the customer. I see that in the just-in-time delivery, and like you said, that’s a huge deal.

MG: It is. It’s a great partnership and alignment. It allows our plants to use that square footage to keep growing, and as we keep growing, we keep buying more labels. So in the long run, there’s more room for building a bigger relationship with Atlantic as well.

PA: When you walk into the Packaging Solution Center, how does it make you feel as a customer of Atlantic? What are you excited about seeing?

Engineers operating the TruMotion Transportation Simulator

MG: It will be very beneficial to have our products running on some of this equipment, and to see how some of those proposals that Chip and Nick make will actually work. Because there’s always a bit of a risk on our side, on the customer’s side, of how successful we think a change is going to be, how likely we are to get payback or savings, and what the rate is going to be. This will help us minimize riskon our end.

PA: Normally you have concept and proposal, to factory acceptance test. It’s not a big risk, but there’s nothing in between. This provides something in between.

MG: There’s normally a couple of months in between, so we base off a video, or a YouTube clip we get sent that shows what the machine is doing. Or it’s a complete concept. Like that Autobagger machine, there were a lot of moving pieces. It wasn’t an off the shelf item. There were a lot of custom pieces because we were retrofitting it to an existing piece of equipment. Since the heights were different, it made it sort of a custom job.

Well, that was a little bit harder to envision. It took a lot conference calls to be able to do those things. It’s one thing to kind of read about it, but then you have to hear about it and picture it in your head, so it’s a longer project.

So if we’re able to test at the Packaging Solution Center, it will be a lot easier to envision what we need it to do. That will turn around and help us complete the idea and move forward.

Thank you to Mark Gossage for sitting down and talking with us about all the nuances of your relationship with Atlantic. We learned a great deal about the challenges you face and the services that bring value to your operations.

Want to learn more? Here are some links for further reading and research:

As the true method of knowledge is experiment, the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which experiences. ~ William Blake

Atlantic celebrated the Grand Opening of the Packaging Solution Center in Charlotte earlier this month. During the event, we demonstrated the first ever Multi-Axis Transportation System used in the packaging industry.

This system shows how we can test, refine, and validate shipping solutions to eliminate the potential for damaging products in transit.

This level of testing resonated with so many of our customers who have experienced damage and dealt with the consequences – whether it was cost, added time, waste, or a combination of all of these.

The ability to test for damage in a lab environment means they no longer have to make guesses and try at their own packaging solutions. We can re-create the issue in our facility and find the right packaging to fix it.

Other customers found new ideas to solve existing problems or streamline current processes through demonstrations of our automated and integrated equipment for end-of-pack lines, stretch, shrink, and e-commerce.

What’s so exciting for Atlantic is to work closely with our partners – equipment manufacturers, material innovators and suppliers – to share these solutions with our customers all in one place. It is truly the future of the packaging world.

We’re grateful to all our customers and vendors who came to Charlotte to tour the Solution Center. It’s your passion and drive that inspired us to build this center and work toward a bright future for the packaging industry.

On Wednesday, August 9th, 2017, Atlantic held the first tour of the Packaging Solution Center as part of a four day Grand Opening event. Atlantic sales, senior managers, technicians, engineers and more along with Choate builders, carpet layers, welders, and furniture installers worked until the wee hours of the morning to get the Center ready to go for our first guests to arrive at 8:30am.

Our guests included customers, vendors, and partners from around the US, Mexico, and Canada. We were so excited to introduce the equipment and expertise at the Center – some never having existed in the packaging industry and some never displayed together in an exhibition and demonstration environment like this.

Here’s how our first day went.

8:30 am: Wes Carter welcomed our very first guests in the lobby of the Packaging Solution Center, where construction completed just hours before everyone arrived.

Guests gather in the lobby

Wes welcomes the very first guests to the Packaging Solution Center

Wes spoke about the vision for the center. It started as a passion project to focus on innovation in packaging, custom solutions across a variety of applications, and advanced unit load testing that could help establish new standards. Over the last decade, Atlantic has developed a technical and scientific approach to packaging and this Center brings this approach to its full realization.

8:45am: Guests moved through our viewing area and onto the testing floor for an explanation and demonstration of the two centerpieces of equipment – the Multi-Axis Vibration Table and the Braking and Impact Sled. These were built by Lansmont and Team Corporations. You can read more about our partnership with them here.

These pieces of equipment are the first of their kind in the packaging industry and offer an opportunity to establish standards and validate shipping solutions.

8:55am: Guests broke off into two groups to tour stations around the rest of the center.

9am – 12pm: Experts at each station introduced materials and equipment that all bring efficiency, automation, and streamlined solutions to our customers.

Stations include a fully automated packaging line – from case erecting to packing, sealing, palletizing, and wrapping – as well as shrink wrapping and bundling, labeling, and horizontal stretch wrapping. In these stations, we’re featuring our partners Wulftec, Pearson, Extreme, TexWrap, and Clysar among others.

Fully Automated Packaging Line

Fully Automatic Wulftec Ring Wrapper

Automated Bagging and Cartoning Line

The Packaging Solution Center also has a full e-commerce demonstration line featuring the latest materials and equipment from leaders in protective packaging and automation including Sealed Air, Ranpak, and 3M Combi.

Automated Right Size Boxing for E-Commerce Fulfillment

This is an incredibly impressive line that presents options to improve the customer experience of e-commerce packaging, from fully protected products, to branded void fill, and optimized box selection that reduces the dim weight for reduced shipping costs.

Overall, this was a comprehensive tour of all the equipment, materials and expertise offered at the Packaging Solution Center. It’s truly the first center of its kind to showcase and demonstrate products from the leading manufacturers in the packaging industry.

We look forward to welcoming our guests for the rest of our Grand Opening event and beyond.

The most advanced testing equipment and research facility in the packaging industry

Charlotte, N.C., July 25, 2017 — Atlantic Packaging announces the opening of their Packaging Solution Center, a multi-million dollar facility in Charlotte, N.C. that will be the first of its kind outside the academic field to feature advanced research, testing, and shipping certification.

Using the testing technology available at this facility, Atlantic will establish a brand-new model in the packaging industry, one with a science-based approach to eliminate guesswork and to create industry-wide shipping standards.

Atlantic was founded in 1946 and has built its reputation over 70 years in the packaging industry.

In the last decade, the company has emerged as a leader in technical packaging expertise with an in-house staff equipped to service sophisticated machinery, engineer automated systems, develop turnkey integrated packaging lines, and consult on high performance materials best suited for a wide variety of applications, from stretch and shrink, to flexible, labeling, and protective packaging.

The Solution Center in Charlotte is a culmination of Atlantic’s dedication to technology in packaging. This is an 80,000 square foot facility representing a $10 million investment. It’s the first and only facility in the industry to offer a Multi-Axis Transportation Simulator for unit load testing in the consumer products industry.

This Multi-Axis system was commissioned by Atlantic and built by Lansmont and TEAM, the leaders in vibration and impact testing equipment for organizations that include NASA and the U.S. military. It simulates real-world transit conditions and represents the most accurate testing equipment available anywhere in the packaging industry.

“The truly unique thing about the Atlantic Solution Center in Charlotte is the investment we’ve made in sophisticated packaging and unit load testing equipment,” says Atlantic President, Wes Carter. “If one of our customers is experiencing damage in transit, we can literally re-create that specific route in our center to see where and how their products are failing. This allows us to create customized packaging solutions based on scientific data, virtually eliminating shipping damage and reducing overall packaging costs.”

Customers from major consumer products companies will be able to test for the right combination in equipment settings, materials and automation to find a qualified solution that protects their products consistently and efficiently.

The Center also features a packaging lab for testing flexible materials as well as several fully integrated packaging lines to showcase the latest in equipment automation. One of these lines is dedicated to innovative e-commerce automation with the latest equipment from protective packaging leaders including Sealed Air, Ranpak, and 3M.

“The real value in the Solution Center is that the customer can view multiple options from various manufacturers,” says Eric Farmer, Atlantic VP for E-Commerce Sales. “They can decide which option they prefer based on cost, sustainability, and effectiveness. Then we can use the lab to verify those results.”

The Grand Opening event for the Packaging Solution Center is August 8th – 12th, 2017. The Center will be open by appointment for customers beginning August 14th.